Dragon Sea Empire

In the past two years when Yin Feng and the Zhonghua Company devoted themselves to the Liaodong Campaign and the Nanyang War, the high-level political struggles of the Ming Dynasty were extremely fierce, and the final result was a situation where "all the people are upright and the court is full, while the villains are looking sideways".

From the beginning of the first year of the Apocalypse, the Donglin party members gradually gained the upper hand in the court, and all the ministers who disagreed with them were thrown out of power. case, the Donglin party members revisited old accounts and violently attacked their opponents. By the end of the year, Ye Xianggao and Han Guangfang assisted the government, Zhao Nanxing was in charge of the bell, and Gao Panlong, who had been at home for 30 years, was appointed as the Shaoqing of Guanglu Temple. He is also a Bachelor of Dongge University, and participated in the maintenance of the aircraft. Others, such as Yang Lian, Zuo Guangdou Bingxian, Li Tengfang, Chen Yuting, Wei Dazhong, Yuan Huazhong, Chang Kedao, Zheng Sanjun, Li Banghua, Sun Juxiang, Wang Zhi'an, etc. Zou Weilian, Xia Jiayu, Zhang Guangqian, Cheng Guoxiang, Liu Tingjian... the top and bottom of the court, the six ministries of the cabinet, and the ministers of science and Taoism are almost all controlled by people in Donglin.

Emperor Tianqi was a well-known woodworking enthusiast. Eunuch Wang Tiqian and Wei Zhongxian, the supervisor of ceremonies, would submit memorials to him when he was chopping with axes and knives and undressing his clothes. They don't care about pushing it all to them to decide on their own. However, at this time, the eunuch Wei Zhongxian, the eunuch of Bingbi and the eunuch in charge of the East Factory, was still fledgling. The palace recharged its batteries and waited for the opportunity.

Since the dynasty is governed by an upright gentleman, the government must of course be refreshed. There are endless internal and external troubles in this dynasty. One of the most urgent tasks is the rebellion of the new army in northern Zhejiang, which threatens the safety of southern Zhili. North, ready to suppress the new army rebellion.

In all fairness, this time to suppress the rebels in northern Zhejiang, the top and bottom of Donglin, no matter in the government or in the opposition, were indeed cruel and spent all their money. Sun Chengzong personally came to Nanjing to supervise the payment as the Minister of the Ministry of War. Those wealthy households in the south of the Yangtze River who were originally paid by the "New Army" were also led by many Donglin Party members who were also from the south of the Yangtze River. rate.

With sufficient pay, various officers and soldiers surrounded the rebels gathered around Hangzhou.

In fact, at the very beginning of the siege, most of the troops in Luo Xiaoming's artillery battalion had already left the rebel brigade, and dropped their heavy weapons and threw them into the area controlled by the Chinese Army in the south of the Yangtze River. Internal strife occurred: the rebels who belonged to the new army, the official army of the Ming Dynasty, and the various rebels and bandits who came in from all walks of life began to compete for food supplies, and quarreled over the command and distribution of spoils, and finally developed into internal strife. Fire and.

At this time, there were rebellions by officers and soldiers all over the country, and rebel soldiers from Jiangxi, Nanzhili, and western Zhejiang successively gathered in Hangzhou, turning the beautiful land in the south of the Yangtze River into a hell on earth where people were devastated and suffering. The key officers in the army, who belonged to the underground staff system of the Chinese army, have already left the rebel army; there are also some rebel leaders who originally belonged to the new army and low-level officers of the official army, because they originally came from the official army system of the Ming Dynasty. Also under the unfavorable situation of the war, he tentatively contacted the Ming government and the Chinese company.

Originally, this was an opportunity to quickly end the chaotic situation in northern Zhejiang, but the political stubbornness and inflexibility of the Donglin party members made this opportunity fleeting. Rejected the surrender conditions proposed by the rebels: set up a special army to guard the east of Zhejiang, he wrote a call to arms and published it all over the north of Zhejiang, declaring that "the Celestial Dynasty will never make peace with the rebels, and must be suppressed painfully,"

At this point, the rebels, who had been falling apart internally, had to temporarily unite and unite externally.

After the meeting of the leaders of the major rebel forces, Jiang Cheng, the former deputy commander of the artillery battalion of the New Army, was elected as the leader. This person was originally a bird gun soldier in Yiwu, a subordinate of Luo Qing, the former deputy commander of Zhejiang Province. He fought in the Battle of Penghu He was really an experienced veteran in the battle of Nanjing and Nanjing. Under his command, bandits from all walks of life plundered food from various places in Zhejiang, and rebel soldiers from all walks of life harassed and restrained officers and soldiers in Jiangxi, Fujian, and Nanzhili. The rebel army dominated by the original Xin army set up an ambush in the north of Hangzhou.

At the foot of Gaoting Mountain in the north of Hangzhou City, in May of the second year of the Apocalypse, on a bright spring day, the main forces of the imperial court's army, the Southern Zhili Army and the Sichuan Army, encountered an ambush during the march. The only cavalry in the rebel army, who was originally stationed The Jiangxi Jiujiang soldiers in Nanzhili - oh, it should be called the Jiujiang rebels at that time. After they attacked the official army, they quickly left the battlefield and lured the official army to pursue them to the southern foot of Gaoting Mountain. The artillery battalion opened fire on the mountain, and even used four western red cannons. Although the backbone of the rebel artillery battalion basically defected to the Chinese army, the remaining artillerymen who had received complete training from Portuguese gunners were still able to use these After the cannon was operated, the dense pursuit column of the officers and soldiers was hit by bursts of artillery fire, and immediately fell into chaos. The junction of South Zhili.

In this way, the officers and soldiers' first comprehensive campaign against the rebel forces in northern Zhejiang failed, and the losses were extremely heavy.

Afterwards, Sun Chengzong decisively ordered the surrounding armies to focus on defense, advocated a comprehensive defense strategy, and blocked the development of northern Zhejiang rebels to southern Zhejiang and western Zhejiang and beyond the province. In order to insist on defense, he did not hesitate to argue repeatedly with Donglin officials in the imperial court. , although he himself is considered a member of Donglin, he rarely participated in court quarrels before.

His plan soon came to fruition. The rebel army temporarily lost the external threat, and started fighting again. The rebel army did not have a unified command system, no recognized leader, and no consistent political goals. This group of people was like a mess. , There are three main components: the original new army, the former Ming army officers and soldiers, bandits in northern Zhejiang and western Zhejiang, and the coerced people. In June of the second year of Tianqi, these three components fell into internal strife again.

News of rebel leaders being beaten to death continued to come in, and small groups of rebels surrendered to the officers and soldiers in Hangzhou City. This infighting was completely out of control. In the end, the rebel forces disintegrated on the spot and were wiped out one after another around Hangzhou City. At the end of June, Yuyao, Cixi and other places were also recovered. The new army's rebellion lasted for nearly 7 months, and finally disintegrated itself.

In July, Sun Chengzong, Shangshu of the Ministry of War, was appointed as the economic strategist of Nanjing. The military forces of the Ming Dynasty began to gather around Nanjing, intending to recover half of the south of the Yangtze River - the eastern part of the south of the Yangtze River under the control of the Chinese army.

From the perspective of the Ming Dynasty court, the situation in the south of the Yangtze River has always been embarrassingly placed there. The three no principles that the Ming Dynasty has always adhered to: no money, no land, and no marriage, placed in Jiangnan, Fujian, Hainan and other places, It became a slap in the face.

In any case, the sea ban is an ancestral system, and proper relaxation is already the limit. Therefore, the existence of Chinese companies that oppose the sea ban is intolerable.

People in Donglin adhere to the moral integrity of doing things, and no one can really see the face of the Chinese company. In fact, the Chinese company is leading the overseas trade order along the entire coast of China, and it is also entering the domestic market by various means. The sea ban is actually pushing the trade between overseas and domestic markets to Chinese companies. The Ming government is actually using the trade profits of major domestic merchants and Chinese companies to help Chinese companies expand. Because of the sea ban According to the policy, it is difficult for the Ming Dynasty government to obtain profits from overseas trade, and these profits are the driving force for major domestic merchants to continue to supply Chinese and Chinese companies.

Although no one can see through this point, the Chinese Army-controlled area in the south of the Yangtze River has become the country's largest overseas smuggling trade distribution center in the past five years. Those people in Jiangnan.

Jiangnan is the main producing area of ​​silk, China's main export product. The Chinese army controls half of Jiangnan and the mouth of the Yangtze River, and almost monopolizes the overseas silk trade. Take the most important raw silk trade as an example: a load of raw silk is purchased from various places in Jiangnan to the warehouse of the Chinese company. The purchase price of the Chinese company is 80 to 250 taels of silver per load, and they don’t even need to move the goods, they can sell them at a price of 280 taels to Japanese businessmen who come to buy raw silk, and then transship them to Taiwan, Luzon and Taiwan. The raw silk traded by the Portuguese and the Spaniards can reach a price of 400 taels, and the raw silk traded with the Westerners and Arabs in Malacca, Banten, the price soared to [-] taels of silver in the second year of the Apocalypse due to the war. Of course, here to participate in the acquisition, The transportation of raw silk also has the influence of major domestic merchants, but they are all transported by sea under the flag of the Chinese Army.

The eastern part of Jiangnan has been prosperous in recent years due to the overseas trade of Chinese companies, but the families of those court officials in Jiangnan were unable to participate in the booming overseas trade due to their political stance.

Although the Jiangnan officials and gentry also secretly traded with the China United Company, but given that the Donglin Party members like to investigate all moral issues, these secret transactions cannot be made bigger, and Chen Zhongji's Jiangnan Township Mansion is very important to Donglin. The Lin party members didn't take it seriously at all, they treated their Donglin party members' families the same as other gentry and landlords, and anyone who committed a crime would be severely punished without mercy. No exceptions.

Therefore, the most vehement advocates of war against the Chinese army are these Donglin Party members who live in the Jiangnan area.

At the end of November, Yin Feng, who had just recovered from the war in Nanyang, received a battle report from Zheng Zhihu at the confluence of the Songhua River and the Hulan River: The Chinese army defeated the remnants of the Abatean Manchurian troops and the Mongols here. The coalition forces, the enemy has fled north and west, and before the end of winter, there will be no more wars in the Northeast.

The place where Zheng Zhihu won the battle was called Harbin in another time and space. His main forces were the Liaodong security team and the pioneer militia composed of locals. The situation, the Ming army on the other side of the Liaohe River is also ready to move, Yin Feng sent an order to Liaodong, and the entire Chinese army entered a state of comprehensive defense throughout the northeast.

When the wars in various places participated by the Chinese Army gradually subsided, the situation in the Jiangnan area began to be tense. At the same time, Fujian officers and soldiers also began to gather troops to the south, and officers and soldiers from Jiangxi and Guangdong and Guangxi were also moving to southern Fujian.